2016 Postmortem

You don't get to really be part of the club if you don't "understand" how backscratching is supposed to work in politics. People certainly don't hand you a megaphone, and they don't actually want to work with you. He still had a vote, and that had to be courted, but that's typically the extent of your power when you're a lone voice in a wilderness. Your influence is made marginal.

Your assessment about what a Clinton win would have brought Sanders is not at all mine. I saw a concerted effort throughout the campaign to marginalize him, and to make him a peddler of unicorns and fairy dust(you know some of the stuff that eventually became a part of the Democratic platform), and then, a loser who couldn't let go. I have no reason to believe, without things being on paper, that any lip-service they might have paid him behind the scenes to get him to drop out would have come to fruition.

The DNC platform didn't get hammered out til right before the convention, and there is just about no reason to believe, given the signals sent up by the Democratic Establishment, that there was any intention to make concessions to Sanders until he pushed all the way to it. They could have done that earlier. They could have given him a win that proved that they weren't just disdainfully locking us out of the conversation, far earlier. They didn't think they had to.

The bottom line is first, I reject the silliness that Sanders contributed to Trump's win--that is almost totally the US media's to own-- but second, even if you insist on a corollary, then you should be looking at Clinton and the DNC for thinking they could turn their back and go about business as usual.

I guess wouldn't be surprised if the Democrats ran somebody against Sanders. Are you saying they want to give him payback for daring to challenge the chosen one? I would be equally unsurprised though, if he isn't challenged. His favorables are way too high, and it makes the DNC look petty and vindictive.